>CONGRESS HAS BEEN ACTIVE RECENTLY on legislation that
concerns electrical contractors.

In October, federal lawmakers launched an effort to block
the Clean Power Plan. Published in the Federal Register in
September, the Clean Power Plan became open to legal and
legislative challenges. The highly politicized plan requires states
to cut carbon emissions. ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR reported,
in the October issue, that the plan faces lawsuits from states’
attorneys general and the coal industry. Now, Congress is
rumbling with opposition.

Rep. Ed Whitfield and Sen. Mitch
McConnell, Republicans from Kentucky,
have introduced separate but similar
legislation that would block the Clean Power
Plan. Introduced under the Congressional
Review Act, such maneuvers have been
successful only once, and these legislations—
if passed—would certainly
suffer a presidential veto.

It’s not all bad news forclean power, though. In thewake of the Paris ClimateAgreement, Congress hasextended the tax credits for solar and wind power for anotherfive years. As of this writing, the legislation, which was includedin the federal budget bill, was not law but was expected to pass.According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the extensionswill add 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 19 GW of wind power.On the other end of notoriously intermittent renewable-energy technologies, transmission and storage is vital.The House recognized this with the passage of the NorthAmerican Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015,which focuses on energy transmission, distribution andstorage. Due to fears of the bill undermining currentinitiatives, the Obama administration has threatenedto veto such a bill.Finally, not strictly energy-related, the Houseand Senate passed the Fixing America’s SurfaceTransportation (FAST) Act, funding highwaysand mass-transit projects. It is the firstlong-term highways bill inover a decade. PresidentObama signed it into lawon Dec. 4.—RICK LAEZMAN ANDTIMOTHY JOHNSON

>AS THE DEBATE over climate change
continues, many figures in the tech
industry have been among the most vocal
in the fight against it. Now, many of the
biggest names in the field are teaming up
to form a climate change supergroup.

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition
aims to back technology being developed
to fight climate change. Involved parties
include Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO
of Amazon.com; Richard Branson,
founder of Virgin Group; Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft; Jack Ma, founder
and chairman of Alibaba Group; Mark
Zuckerberg, founder, chairman and CEO
of Facebook; and many more.

“The existing system of basicresearch, clean-energy investment,regulatory frameworks, and subsidiesfails to sufficiently mobilize investmentin truly transformative energy solutionsfor the future,” according to a statementon the coalition website. “We can’twait for the system to change throughnormal cycles.”The coalition calls for a public-privatepartnership between governments,researchers and investors, with anemphasis on being proactive rather thanreactive. However, it emphasizes that littleprogress can be made without the directinvolvement of major world governments.

“Only our governments have themandate to protect the public interest aswell as the resources and mechanismsto do this,” the website states. “We knowgovernment investment in research canlead to the creation of industries thatadvance the common good and are drivenby private capital… . However, currentgovernmental funding levels for cleanenergy are simply insufficient to meet thechallenges before us.”The money is where the coalitioncomes in. This group aims to form anetwork of private capital to help build astructure that will accelerate the changeto an “advanced energy future.”The announcement of the coalitioncoincided with the start of the U.N.Climate Change Conference, which tookplace in Paris from Nov. 30–Dec. 11, 2015,and ended with a global agreement tocombat climate change on Dec. 12, 2015.